FFwD - Cheekless Beef Daube with Carrots and Macaroni

No beef cheeks.  No Le Creuset.  This week's French Friday was chuck roast in a crock pot!  But oh what Dorie can do with chuck roast.  And now I can do it too!!!

Beef Daube with Macaroni

I would love to try this with beef cheeks sometime but not even our butcher shop can get them.    Chuck roast makes a delicious substitute though and this was probably the best pot roast I've ever made.

Since I'm not feeling well (head cold, ugh!) I decided after browning the meat to use the crock pot and it worked out perfectly.  My husband gave it two thumbs up, then added two toes:)  AJ tried it out and also gave his approval...and wanted more:)

AJ asking for another bite!

The secret ingredient, bittersweet chocolate, added depth and just a touch of sweetness.  Or maybe the sweetness came from the wine.  Or a little of both.  I had a zinfandel and a cabernet on hand and decided the cab might be too heavy.  The zin was a tad sweet which is odd because it was also dry but worked out well and was delicious served with the daube.

This was one of the best French Friday recipes so far and will definitely be made again at my house!

A couple of weeks ago we made Goat Cheese Mini Puffs but I didn't blog them.  I just didn't love them and for me they weren't worth the effort.  Maybe for a party they would be nice just because they are different but I'd rather have the goat cheese spread on a crunchy cracker.

Goat Cheese Mini Puffs 

Oh yeah, I've made my olives from last week but we haven't tried them yet!  I'll let you know.

Herbed Olives

Check out all the French Friday results!  Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

FFwD - Top Secret Chocolate Mousse

Some things cause me to pause.  The first leaves falling in an autumn wind.  My grandson making eye contact with me.  Eating raw eggs.  Call me an impaired gourmand if you choose but that's who I am.

Top Secret Chocolate Mousse

I thought about whether to skip this recipe but I wanted to make it.  Thanks to a new Whole Foods I was able to find pasteurized eggs.  End of dilemma right?  Nope.  Pasteurized egg whites will not whip up into a light and airy meringue!  Will not!  The picture below shows egg whites that look more like...I'm not sure what.

Pasteurized egg whites whipped for 3 minutes

So I switched to regular egg whites and voila...after 1 minute look what I had!

Egg whites whipped for 1 minute!


We loved it!  An easy and elegant dessert!  Its great eaten immediately but the next day its kind of like a chocolate truffle.  Nothing wrong with that!  Oh yeah...I would like to report no illness as a result of eating raw eggs.  I didn't expect there would be but we all have our phobias

There has been much cussing and swearing as I write this!  See how I can't get out of the photo box!  I give up!  ANNOYING!

Check out all the French Friday cooks!

FFwD - Mushroom and Shallot Quiche

Many of the blogs I've read over the years talk about Nick Malgieri's pie crust so I decided to try it for this quiche. It worked great but it is quite different from a traditional flaky crust. It's more like a cookie crust which might seem odd with a mushroom quiche but somehow it goes together beautifully.

Mixing the quiche I was thinking it was a bit fussy with the sprinkle the thyme then the mushrooms and top with scallions and cheese so while I'm thinking about it being fussy I forgot to spread the mushrooms! Yes I forgot the mushrooms for the mushroom quiche! Luckily I wondered what was in the bowl on the counter...duh! I sort of dropped them on top and all was well.

I'll definitely make this again. I brought it to my daughter's in law house to share with her and we both enjoyed it. My son, the non mushroom eater wonders why I didn't substitute tomatoes... Maybe next time:)

I've just written my first post on my ipad. I'm keeping my fingers crossed on this one! Sorry but I don't know how to link back to the French Friday page. If anyone knows how I'd appreciate the info.

Happily so far all our NE Doristas seem to be in good shape. So sorry for all the folks with no power. Hope it will be back soon!

Cranberry Coffee Cake

Pioneer Woman Nantucket Cranberry Pie

About a year ago, before I discovered pinterest, I came across a recipe for cranberry coffee cake while surfing the net and gave it a try for a ladies coffee date at my house.  We all loved it and I made it a couple of times before moving on to something else and it totally went off my radar.  Until I saw fresh cranberries in the grocery store recently.  Now I can't find the same recipe.

I found this one from The Pioneer Woman and tried it today.  Its good but its not quiet what I'm looking for.  But this one is worth a try.  The topping is a lot like a crumble with a delicate almond flavor.  The one I had before was a bit more like coffee cake.

If anyone has a recipe for cranberry cake, pie, or coffee cake please let me know!

FFwD - Chicken Tagine with Sweet Potatoes and Prunes and Soup Catch Up

B having breakfast with GiGi and Thunder:)

I know that's not a picture of Chicken Tagine or Spur of the Moment Soup but I can't resist the impulse to tell you why I missed last week's post.  He was at my house:)  Having our grandson spend a week with us without his parents was heavenly!  For us at least, not so much for his Mom and Dad.

B stayed at Camp GiGi Thunder (I'm GiGi, Gary's Thunder......I know, I know its weird but there's a story) while his parents settled into their new home.  A chance to know B more intimately was not just rewarding it filled our hearts to near bursting.  Being grandparents IS as wonderful as people say!!!  The problem is we miss him so much now.  We are going through serious baby withdrawal pain.

Chicken Tagine with Sweet Potatoes and Prunes

The Chicken Tagine.  It was wonderful.  The chicken was moist and tender.  The prunes and onions almost melt in your mouth.  Sweet potatoes are always a hit with us.  I served it with rice because that's what I had but I would love to try it with couscous.  I might not make the recipe as is often but I will use the technique often.

Spur of the Moment Vegetable Soup

And last week's Spur of the Moment Soup - Loved it too!  I used carrots and potatoes, once again its what I had and it was quick and easy and delicious!  October has been a great month of Dorie recipes!

Visit the French Friday website to see what everyone else did with the recipe.  Now we're on to November's recipes and it looks like another great line up.  Happy Halloween everyone:)

FFwD - Crispy, Crackly Apple-Almond Tart

Crispy, Crackly Apple-Almond Tart

Its not pretty.  I want a dessert to be pretty.  When I bring it to the table I want people to gasp, maybe that's a bit dramatic, but I want the people eager for a taste.  This apple-almond tart looks okay.  It looks like the sturdy older sister of desserts that will be a perfectly adequate dessert but not a fun, flirty younger sister of a dessert that will leave you wanting more!

That being said it probably would have been prettier had I run it under the broiler (as Dorie suggests) to brown the apples up a bit.  I served it with Brown Sugar Bourbon Ice Cream.  The recipe was in my new bon Appétite magazine and I was able to fulfill my goal of cooking at least one recipe from every magazine that comes in the house:)  Gary thought the ice cream was too sweet but I thought it was great and it will probably make an appearance at Thanksgiving to escort the pecan pie!  I might even add toasted pecans!

Aside from appearance this tart is good and very easy to make.  Gary's hoping I'll make it again soon!

I just took at peek at the other French Friday cooks links and it looks like everyone loved it!

FFwD - Hummus

Hummus from Around My French Table



Hummus may not seem very French but Dorie says its become popular and on the menu at many restaurants and in many homes.  If I were composing a book of recipes from 'around my American table' there would be things like ravioli and tacos and posole and other things not necessarily thought of as typical American food.

A friend came over and we shared a bottle of Grgich Hills Cabernet with our hummus.  Its a wine that is out of my typical budget but we split the cost making it fun and affordable for us both.  Grgich Hills was our favorite winery on our Napa tour.

Be sure to check out everyone's results with this easy and delicious recipe at  French Fridays with Dorie!

FFwD - NOT Endives, Apples, and Grapes

Thanksgiving Squash and Apples

Yes todays French Friday assignment  was for Endives, Apples, and Grapes but there was no endive in two grocery stores so I decided to go with Dorie's bonne idee and use squash instead.  I just happened to have 1/2 a butternut in the fridge since I had made butternut risotto a few days ago....remember the day the news came out that rice is high in arsenic?  Yeh, I heard that as I'm stirring my risotto.

Anyhow, we loved this and it will be making an appearance on our Thanksgiving table.  I served it with baked pork chops but I can imagine it with turkey and cranberry relish.  It was delightful to have something entirely new, a whole different set of tastes and textures.  And the smell?  Divine!  A raw grape will never again be quite as satisfying as one sauteed in butter with rosemary!  Tossing with toasted pecans is a must and completes the interesting textures going on!  I can't say enough good things about this dish!

Check out all the amazing French Fridays blogs and see what everyone is up to this week!

Butternut Sage Risotto

I just wanted to share a photo of my risotto because it was the best I've ever made.  The sage with the squash was extremely flavorful and paired perfectly with the creaminess of the rice.  It made a heavenly dinner followed by Tuesdays with Dorie nectarine upside down cake which I have yet to blog about.....but I will eventually.

Fig Walnut Cake

I live in the middle of Oklahoma.  We don't have an abundance of fresh figs.  Gary and I love love them, though, so when I saw my fellow French Friday with Dorie cook, Andrea at The Kitchen Lioness, had baked a fig walnut cake I wanted figs and I wanted fig cake and I wanted it immediately!  Alas, I had to wait until figs made an appearance in my grocery.  When I found them at Forward Foods, a wonderful specialty shop in Oklahoma City, I hurried home to make Andrea's fig walnut cake.  

Fig Walnut Cake

I pronounce it a huge success!  The cake is basic and simple to make.  You add ground fresh walnuts and walnut pieces to the batter and Andrea stresses they should be fresh walnuts but I used all my luck finding the figs and had none left to help with fresh walnuts so I had to use packaged grocery store nuts.  While I hope to have fresh walnuts and fresh figs together one of these days I was happy with what I produced.

I will say using fig preserves as a topping with a touch of whipped cream makes all the difference.  The flavor of the figs in the cake is subtle and the preserves help highlight the figgyness.  

Homemade Fig Preserves

My lovely sister-in-law in Memphis has a fig tree and gave me enough figs to make 6 pints of preserves.  They are our new favorite jelly!

Lately I'm on a roll with cakes, this one and a nectarine upside down cake, but Andrea has so many great looking cakes on her blog that I want to keep baking.  Unfortunately my jeans have requested a cake free week or two.  I'm taking it under consideration.....

FFwD - Chicken Basquaise and Spice-Poached Pears

Chicken Basquaise

Delicious! We loved this one!  In fact we seem to be on a winning streak with Around My French Table.

This time of year the garden is winding down its pepper production but it was nice to use what I had and only supplement with a banana pepper from the store.  The tomatoes were a big disappointment!  I bought a 4 pack and two of them were molded by the next day!  I keep telling myself I'm taking produce back to the store when that happens but once again I didn't.  Luckily I had some cherry tomatoes to throw in.  And I didn't peel:)

Last week I was in Mill Valley, CA sharing a beautiful house with a friend.  We had a great time in Muir Woods and Sonoma and Napa Valley.  Great food and wine shared in a beautiful setting with a good friend.  Does it get any better than that?  But that's a whole other post...

One of the fun things about the trip was cooking in the gorgeous state of the art kitchen of the house we were in.  We made delicious breakfasts most days and a couple of dinners.  My spice-poached pears were a welcome dessert served with a piece of salted dark chocolate.  A perfect ending to a perfect day and a memory to cherish.

Spice-Poached Pears

Don't forget to go by the French Friday site!